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the victor's head. Richard had given orders for his son's execution, but they had been ignored (Polydore Vergil, p. 563; cf. Baines, i. 436).

Stanley's services were duly rewarded. The forfeited estates of the Pilkingtons (between Manchester and Bury) and several other Lancashire families swelled his possessions, and on 27 Oct. following he was created Earl of Derby; the title was taken from the county in which he had no lands, and not from the hundred of West Derby, in which the bulk of his estates lay (Complete Peerage, iii. 69). He purchased the Yorkshire and Axholme estates of the Mowbrays from William, marquis of Berkeley, for whose soul he provided for prayers at Burscough Priory in his will (Stonehouse, Isle of Axholme, p. 140; Dugdale, ii. 249).

Stanley figured in the coronations of Henry and Elizabeth of York as one of the commissioners for executing the office of lord high steward (Leland, Collectanea, iv. 225). Henry confirmed him in his posts of constable of England (5 March 1486), high steward of the duchy of Lancaster, and high forester north of Trent, adding the constableship of Halton Castle, Cheshire, the receivership of the county palatine of Lancaster, and other lucrative positions (Rot. Parl. vi. 373). He was godfather to Prince Arthur, and in July 1495 the king and queen paid him a visit of nearly a month's duration at Knowsley and Lathom (Excerpta Historica, p. 104). He enlarged Knowsley House and built a bridge at Warrington for the occasion (Gregson, p. 230). Henry probably intended the honour as an assurance that he dissociated Derby from the treason of his brother, who had perished on the scaffold in the previous February. He died at Lathom on 29 July 1504, and was buried with his ancestors in the neighbouring priory of Burscough.

His portrait at Knowsley, engraved in Baines's ‘History of Lancashire,’ shows a long thin face, with a full beard.

Derby married twice: his first wife was Eleanor Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury [q. v.]; they were married before 1460, and she died between 1464 and 1473 (Rot. Parl. v. 545, vi. 46). By her he had six sons, several of whom died young, and four daughters. George, the eldest surviving son, married Joan, only child of Lord Strange (d. 1477) of Knockin in the march of Wales, and in her right was summoned to the House of Lords under that title from 1482; Henry VII made him a knight of the Garter (1487) and a privy councillor. He died on 5 Dec. 1497 (‘at an ungodly banquet, alas! he was poisoned,’ Seacome, p. 36) at Derby House, St. Paul's Wharf, London, whose site is now occupied by the Heralds' College, and was buried with his mother at St. James's, Garlickhithe. His widow died on 20 March 1514. Thomas, eldest of four sons, became second earl of Derby [see under Stanley, Edward, third Earl of Derby]. Two younger sons of Derby—Edward, lord Monteagle [q. v.], and James, bishop of Ely [q. v.] —are separately noticed.

Derby was a benefactor of Burscough priory, in which he erected a tomb with effigies of himself and his two wives, and placed images of his ancestors up to his great-grandfather in the arches of the chancel (Dugdale, ii. 249).

[The early history of the Stanleys received a romantic colouring in the ‘Song of the Lady Bessy’ by Humphrey Brereton, a retainer of the first Earl of Derby, and the metrical family chronicle said to have been written about 1562 by Thomas Stanley, bishop of Sodor and Man [see under Stanley, Edward, (1460?–1523)]. The metrical history supplied Seacome (Memoirs of the House of Stanley, 1741; 7th ed. 1840) with the romantic details in the early life of the first Sir John Stanley which passed into the short histories of the family by Ross (1848), Draper (1864), and others. See also Rotuli Parliamentorum; Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas; Rymer's Fœdera, orig. edit.; Polydore Vergil's Anglica Historia; More's Richard III, ed. Lumby; Fabyan and Hall's Chronicles, ed. Ellis; Continuation of the Croyland Chronicle, ed. Gale, 1691; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner; Comines's Memoirs, ed. Dupont; Dugdale's Baronage; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Ormerod's History of Cheshire, ed. Helsby; Baines's History of Lancashire; Gregson's Portfolio of Fragments relating to the History of Lancashire, 1817; Leland's Collectanea, ed. Hearne; Bentley's Excerpta Historica, 1831; Gairdner's Richard III; Ramsay's Lancaster and York; Wylie's History of Henry IV; Palatine Note Book, iii. 161; Stanley Papers (Chetham Soc.); Hutton's Bosworth Field, 1813.]

STANLEY, THOMAS (1625–1678), author, born at Cumberlow, Hertfordshire, in 1625, was only son of Sir Thomas Stanley, knt., of that place, and of Leytonstone, Essex, by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Sir William Hammond of St. Albans, near Dover (cf. Carter, Analysis of Honour, 1660; Visitation of Essex, 1634, Harl. Soc. p. 493). His father was grandson of Thomas Stanley, a natural son of Edward Stanley, third earl of Derby [q. v.] His mother's family brought him into lineal relations with many accom-